Spinal disorders such as degenerative disc disease, disc herniation, osteoporosis, spondylolisthesis, stenosis, scoliosis and other curvature abnormalities, kyphosis, tumor, and fracture may result from factors including trauma, disease and degenerative conditions caused by injury and aging. Spinal disorders typically result in symptoms including pain, nerve damage, and partial or complete loss of mobility. For example, after a disc collapse, severe pain and discomfort can occur due to the pressure exerted on nerves and the spinal column.
Non-surgical treatments, such as medication, rehabilitation and exercise can be effective, however, may fail to relieve the symptoms associated with these disorders. Surgical treatment of these spinal disorders includes fusion, fixation, discectomy, lam inectomy, osteotomy and implantable prosthetics. These treatments may employ spinal implants and, in some cases, the placement of interbody implants via a variety of invasive, partially invasive and/or minimally invasive surgical pathways. Furthermore, in spinal disorders wherein a patient has an abnormal spinal curvature, surgeons may perform a complete and/or partial osteotomy to remove bony structures from the spine in order to reorient the bones of the spine to provide the patient with a desired spinal curvature. In many cases, however, there is difficulty in providing an accurate kyphotic and/or lordotic angle when performing osteotomy. Various factors contribute to this difficulty, including, but not limited to: the challenge of cutting a wedge-shaped aperture in the spinal anatomy having a precise slope; and the breakdown or subsidence of the remaining bony portions after an osteotomy is performed. This disclosure describes an improvement in these technologies.